


And We Live Because We Love

by liketogetlost



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 05:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketogetlost/pseuds/liketogetlost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What you can do, it's whatever you make of it. You're made up of so many different strands, and somehow they've all come together to make something so uniquely you. And yet, there's parts of you out there, in the grid of it all, that will be there long after you and me are gone."</p>
            </blockquote>





	And We Live Because We Love

**Author's Note:**

> This is apparently what happens after you read "Water for Elephants" and follow it up by marathoning _Carnivale_. Set in the 1930's.

Sometimes her feet itch.

Sometimes Rose Tyler dares to continue dreaming long after her eyes have opened to the morning sun. There's the dinners and the tennis lessons and the way mother looks at her like no one will ever take her hand if they haven't by now, and the way her friends stop inviting her over for tea when their bellies begin to swell. Peter and Jackie Tyler are important people. An important inventor and the wife of an important inventor. It only makes sense their daughter would be an important person too. Or at least marry into another important family.

Rose doesn't fancy settling down. She doesn't think her feet would let her. Having babies, cooking dinner. Patting her husband on the back when he comes home after a great day at work. Waiting until the lights go out for him to make some clumsy moves beneath the covers and leave her to dreaming again. It all sounds like a literal hell to her.

A man would have to be very extraordinary to catch her.

Before she goes to bed at night she kneels in front of her trunk and places another object in it she'll need when she makes her grand escape. She's been doing this every night since she was fourteen. Six years later and it's almost full. Every now and then she takes things out, like stockings and hats. She does miss wearing them, after all. But she always puts them back, with the addition of something else she'll need on her journey. At first it was things like ribbons for her hair and her stuffed rabbit Tansy, but as she grew older she added things a bit more practical like safety pins and rubbing alcohol, a world atlas and the pocket watch her father gave her when she was nine. 

It was, in fact, entirely impractical to believe she could grab this gigantic trunk with ease as she made her way out the door, but she doesn't ponder on it too much.

She spends most of her days listening to records with her big picture window open so the room feels less stifling. She reads through books full of girls like her, girls who wished for more and who's wishes came true. 

When she finds the stray book bug dead in the bindings, she'll pass her finger over it without thought and let it crawl onto her wrist. She'll pretend to be surprised when it tickles the hair on her skin, and blow it out the big picture window before she turns the next page.

There's gifts and there's curses, and she likes to think what she can do is neither. In fact she doesn't like to think about it at all, if she can help it.

The carnival comes to town and she begs her mother take her. At night, so the lights make it seem like there's actually stars in the sky and not the London fog that seems to coat everything within her life. The smell of popcorn and damp grass is strong in her nostrils, and she breathes it in deep. 

Jackie moans about the noise, somehow the sound of her voice still rises above screaming children and the music of the carousel, but Rose barely pays attention. There's cotton candy to let melt on her tongue and the ferris wheel to ride. Boys look her up and down as she walks through the midway, from her sandals to the dip in the neck of her sundress to the curls in her hair and she looks right past them. 

The animal show makes her sad. But she goes to see it anyhow because she knows that performing is all the animals are there for, but they're trapped like her. Kept in cages and ordered around. So she likes to watch them when they're at their best. Free to stretch their legs and roar as loud as they wish. Light glints off the fangs of a grand tiger as he opens his mouth wide and lets his sorrow out, and Rose fancies the idea of staying behind to free them all after the show.

"Rose, I'm going to get a lemonade. This is all too much walking for a Saturday night. You coming, dear?" Jackie's already walking in the opposite direction.

"Ta, mother." Without a backwards glance Rose heads for the carousel. Bright, flashing pink bulbs and porcelain horses with their noses in the air like the ones she rides during her weekly lessons. There's mostly children sitting atop them, smiling grins missing teeth at their parents.

Rose waits beyond the metal railing for the ride to stop. When it does, the line advances until she's standing in front of the ticket taker, and Rose realizes too late she's run out of tickets.

"Something wrong, miss?" The man's voice sounds like he's found her situation to be comical.

"I seem to have misplaced my ticket, I'll just have to go and --"

"No worries, miss. You seem to want this ride awfully bad, just come now." 

Rose looks up from her pocketbook to find the man smiling at her. His hair is a full blown mess and his cheeks are dirty with grease but his smile makes something in her stomach flip.

"Well, thank you. That's very kind." 

He goes to take her hand to lead her up the metal steps and Rose notices the cut along the inside of his palm, too late. She reaches for the railing instead but he grabs her hand and helps her up. She can feel his skin moving beneath hers. Rose breathes in deep and hopes he won't notice until it's too late.

"Pick yourself a live one. This one here's real nice and gentle." He's smiling at her again like he just can't stop finding her funny. There's a bit of an awkward moment when she climbs atop the horse, and almost stumbles, her heart still pounding from the feel of his skin healing against hers. He grabs for her, and wraps an arm tight around her middle. His breath grazes her neck as he laughs.

"Careful, now. I've never had anyone die on the carousel before, you'd be a first." He whispers into her ear and for a moment Rose lets her eyes flutter shut and enjoy the feel of this, his voice on her and his body pressed close to her own.

"I'm alright, thanks."

And then he's gone, and the ride's starting. The music swells as the horses go up and down, and Rose closes her eyes again and smiles, letting her stomach jump with each turnaround, remembering the days when he feet didn't reach the metal stirrups and her mother watched from the railings with a bright grin on her face.

"Flying, are we?"

His voice, again. She jumps and opens her eyes to him, inches away and holding onto the pole her horse is attached to. "You look to be a million miles away."

She watches him as he turns, grabbing onto each pole as the ride twirls round and round, swinging from every one like a monkey in a tree. He pretends to almost fall, making silly faces and the children scream with fear and delight. His thin arms still flex strong with each grab, sweat shining in the pink light on the skin not covered by his vest. He climbs onto an empty horse and brings it to a gallop with a fake whip to it's rear. Rose laughs, and it carries, because he looks up at her then and looks so hard she blushes and has to turn away.

When the ride ends Rose carefully climbs down and makes her way to the gate, trying not to look the man in the eye as she passes but failing as he steps in front of her before she can leave.

"You should come back tomorrow, in the daytime. Much less crowded and you know, loud." He's close enough she can smell him, sweat and dirt and grease and she tells herself it was the carousel ride that's making her feel dizzy.

"I'll try. Were you planning on putting on your show, again?"

He smiles again. "Oh that? That was just special. I tend to go a bit mad around pretty girls. Especially pretty girls named..."

Rose pauses, waiting for him to finish and then realizing what he's asking. "Oh, Rose."

"Well, Oh Rose, I do hope you'll come back tomorrow." 

"Rose! Time to leave, I've had enough of this place and it's bloody animals." Rose looks up to find her mother wiping something off her shoe with a napkin. 

The man laughs and Rose along with him. She catches up to her mum and waits ten seconds before turning back. Her heart skips a beat to find him waving at her. It skips two more when he looks at his hand and then back up at her again.

"Bloody hell, Rose! Slow down!" Jackie yells as Rose runs as fast as her sandals will allow.

\--

That night she dreams of twirling, of carousel music and dancing with the wild haired man. She awakes just as she pulls his hand to her mouth and kisses his palm where the cut was healed. 

Rose holds onto the dream as long as she can in the morning light, pressing the feel of his skin between her lips and counting sixty ticks of her pocket watch that tick and tock inside her trunk before she opens her eyes and lets herself wake up.

\--

Rose doesn't bother to curl her hair that morning. She lets it fall down her neck in waves and into her face as she hurries to escape back to the carnival. She doesn't think about if he'll be working or not because of course he will be, he has to be. She's in such a rush she doesn't notice the stockings she's pulled on have runners in them until she's ready to go, and by then she can't quite make herself care. 

It only takes Rose asking twice before her father agrees to take her back to the fairgrounds. She takes a bite of toast and kisses him on the cheek before she tells him she'll meet him out in the car.

"Be careful, alright?" Peter tells her as they arrive. Rose is already halfway out the door when he gently tugs on her arm. "I'm serious, love. You're not exactly the poshest bird around. Don't get into trouble."

Rose smiles and plants another kiss to his cheek. "Thanks, you know I always enjoy hearing that."

For some reason Rose thought to bring her pocket watch with her. She lets the chain slide between her fingers where it hangs from her neck as she glances around the almost empty midway for a sign of that hair. 

When she finds herself back at the carousel she's disappointed to see another man running it. He's shorter, and a bit angry looking if she's being honest, but she brings herself to ask him where her boy is.

Before she can mutter a word, there's a touch at her shoulder and she jumps, turning around.

"Sorry! It's just me!" The boy smiles at her, face clean of grease this time and hair a bit less wild. "Hi."

Rose grins back. "Hello." She realizes she doesn't even know his name, and she's about to ask when he grabs her hand and gently pulls her away from the ride. 

"I'm really glad you came! Come on, then!"

Rose laughs as she follows him through the small crowd that's there. Children glance up at them, some smile, some seem to look at her asking "Who are you?". Mothers glare and fathers yawn as they pass. Rose's watch bounces against her chest as she runs to catch up with her carousel man, hitting between her breasts and no doubt leaving a mark.

"Where are we going?" She shouts, but she doesn't really care. He glances back at her, manic smile on his face, and she realizes she would follow him anywhere. 

They finally stop outside a small trailer, covered in odd artwork with the door open, strings of beads covering the doorway. "Here." He says, breathless and sweaty.

Rose takes her gaze away from his reddened cheeks and the sheen on his skin to really read the words across the trailer. "Tarot reading? Oh come, now. This is complete rubbish! This is the first place you bring me to?" She tugs on his hand. "Come on, let's go ride the ferris wheel."

He pulls his hand away and shakes his head. "You, Rose, are a impossible creature. You have all sorts of wonderful things going on inside you." She tries to mask her shiver at him gesturing towards her body. "We need to get to the bottom of it."

"The bottom of what? You're not making any sense. I don't have time for people who don't make any sense."

He laughs, and holds up his hand. The hand she kissed in her dream, the hand she healed last night. "You, love, are the one who doesn't make any sense. What was this, then?"

Rose frowns, turning to leave. "Is that the only reason you wanted to see me again?" She's yelling back at him as he pulls her around. "I don't even know what you're talking about."

"How can you think I wanted to see you again for something you don't know about? Bloody hell, now I really am making no sense. Rose, I wanted to see you again. We can go ride the ferris wheel right now, if that's what you want. But aren't you at all the least bit curious?" He nods towards the trailer, and Rose has to admit she's not completely against the idea.

"Come on, then." He wiggles his eyebrows up and down, and Rose giggles. "I see that spark of adventure in your eye. It won't hurt, I promise."

\--

The tarot reader is younger than Rose thought she would be. She's weary though, trousers full of holes and hair far more greasy than it should be. Rose wonders at her past as the woman begins to read her future.

Her boy sits next to her, brow furrowed as Rose cuts the deck in half and places one half back on top of the other. Even in the dim light of the trailer he glows. 

The woman turns the first card and Rose sucks in a breath. She can't tell what any of the odd little pieces of art mean but they all look foreboding and quite serious to her. 

"You yearn for travel. There's something about you that can never be still, that must always be in motion. Whether it's your mind or your body, you crave adventure and romance." Rose blushes at that and tries not to meet the man's eye, even though she can feel him looking at her through the corner of it.

"Sometime soon you will take a important trip. It will change your life."

The blood in her veins pumps ten times harder. All she wants is to get away, but she doesn't believe in this sort of thing so she tries not to let herself get too excited. 

She turns the next card. "You are just one piece of the puzzle. Somewhere there is another part of you, lost in the darkness, following the thin trail of a man without a name." Rose thinks of her boy and wonders again at his own name, but tries to pay attention to the reader. "You are one petal on a rose, one footstep in time. You, my dear, are an everlasting thing."

"Well, I don't know about that." Rose feels her heart beating faster. 

The reader turns the last card and Rose holds her breath, waiting for the explanation.

"There is an animal inside you. A animal that comes out at night, that howls at the moon it's visited. This animal has followed you since birth, it's sewn throughout the fabric of time and cannot be undone. It brings life, the gift of life. This is a powerful thing, something that should not be played with."

Rose exhales on a shaky breath, and waits for what, she doesn't know. Her boy nods after a while, breaking the silence by placing a couple pence on the table. Rose thinks she should be embarrassed, of course she was going to pay, but she suddenly needs to be outside in the fresh air so she's thankful when he takes her hand and leads her out.

\--

They don't speak all the way to the ferris wheel. Rose doesn't say anything until they reach the top and the ride stops, and she looks around to find that fog that's followed her all her life is gone today. The sun is bright in the sky and seemingly so close she could reach out and burn her hand in it's flames. There's something about the orange fire of the sun that's always called out to her, when it rarely visits her gloomy London town.

"I never talk about it. I mean, who would I tell?"

She doesn't know when she reached out for his hand but it's there, in her lap, where she runs her fingers across the smooth palm over and over. 

"You don't have to. Rose." When she looks up at him, she feels like his eyes go on forever, two dark brown orbs that hold all the secrets of the universe. It's dizzying, but she likes it.

"What's your favorite food?"

"What?"

He grins, manic as ever. "Your favorite food? Your favorite movie? Those are the important things, Rose. This." He grips her hand, closing his fist over hers in her lap. "This is just one detail."

"What you can do, it's whatever you make of it. You're made up of so many different strands, and somehow they've all come together to make something so uniquely you. And yet, there's parts of you out there, in the grid of it all, that will be there long after you and me are gone."

Rose laughs. "Now you're definitely making absolutely no sense."

He squeezes her hand. "I know." Then there's the dizziness again, because he's leaning into her and she's not dreaming, he's really kissing her with his real lips. Soft, and tender, and Rose moans into his mouth and knows why she never did anything like this with any other boy. She was always waiting for him, and nothing would have ever come close to the feeling of his bottom lip between her own, or the slide of his tongue across hers. 

She's breathless, and her face rivals that the color of her name, and so does his when they pull away. 

"Is that a pocket watch?"

"What?" Rose can't seem to grasp his words at the moment.

Her boy reaches up and his knuckles brush the inside of her left breast, causing her heart to just about pound out of her chest as he picks up the watch and looks at it closely. "It's beautiful."

His eyes are dark pools again when he looks up at her. The ferris wheel begins to move as he smiles. "Want to see something?"

Then her feet are on the ground and her arms are around his neck, just about strangling him as she gasps from the suddenness of it all. 

He's chuckling into her ear and then he's whispering. "Look up."

There they are, sitting in the top seat on the ferris wheel, kissing. Rose can still feel the tingle of his lips on hers as she watches what happened mere moments ago, and she stares, transfixed, as they both suddenly blink out of existence.

She means to loosen her hold on the boy but actually tightens it instead. "But you, we..."

"Didn't I mention, I can travel in time?" He says it like it's merely one tiny detail in the vastness of everything. Nothing to worry about.

And because of that, she believes it, too. She grins up at her boy, and remembers the reader's prediction. 

"But if you can travel in time, why are you here? I mean, there have to be more glamorous places than, well. Here and now."

He chuckles again and the vibration of it tickles her chest. "I've been to lots of places, Rose. Not all of them interesting. But that's what makes them interesting. And." He kisses her again, without asking. Because he doesn't have to, really. "I wouldn't have met you." Spoken against her lips, it sounds like the proposal her mother always wanted her to receive.

Rose finally pulls away and plays with the chain on her watch. "I guess that's reason enough to work a carnival." She says, poking her tongue out between her teeth on a grin.

He grins back at her like she's the only thing in the world worth looking at. "Yep. So, what do you say? Want to take an important trip?" He says the last word with a pop.

"I don't even know your name!" 

"Ah, this is true. Well, details, details. But I understand." Her boy leans in, smelling sweet with sweat and somehow, metal, as he whispers in her ear.

Rose smiles, and nods. "Alright." She remembers the atlas and the rubbing alcohol. "I just need to get something." 

He narrows his eyes and laughs, taking her hand and running for the exit.

\--

Rose Tyler kicks at a candy wrapper on the ground. She curls her fingers in her jean pockets and sighs, looking up at the waving flags of the carnival sign. It's clearly the wrong time. Wrong year, wrong decade, wrong world. It's a toss up, this whole thing. Sometimes the dimensional scanner finds DNA that is just about right, but not quite close enough. Every now and then she meets someone who looks exactly like him, but has different colored eyes or speaks with a real Scottish accent. Sometimes she finds herself. Sometimes she has brown hair and sometimes she's a child or other times she doesn't exist at all.

Rose hears laughter and turns to see two people running away from the ferris wheel, laughing and holding each others hands tight. 

Sometimes she finds bits and pieces of what she's looking for. And sometimes those pieces find each other. Rose smiles and watches as they rush past her towards the front gate, not noticing the out of place blonde in odd looking clothes who's watching them as they go.

It's the times like this that give her hope, that keep her flashing in and out of time and space again and again. That sometimes, they do find each other. In some sort of impossible way.

Rose holds onto the moment as long as she can, breathing deep and counting sixty ticks on her watch and then, she opens her eyes. 

She presses the button, and she's gone.


End file.
